Sony Says “Spidey 3 Not Pirated”

If you’ve been anywhere in China the image above will be a familar shop to you. While we were denied seating at the Spider-Man 3 preview Tuesday night at Festival Walk because Sony HK had given away more tickets than seats, we waved our fist and told them we’d watch the pirated DVD instead and took off in a huff. But we find out they had the last laugh as the news hit today:

Contrary to news reports about stolen copies of Spider-Man 3 being sold illegally on the streets in China, our investigation in China has revealed no case of the film being pirated to date.

Similar hoaxes and false alarms have occurred prior to the release of other major films. We have uncovered examples of Spider-Man 2 being sold in Spider-Man 3 boxes in China. But thus far we can find no instance where Spider-Man 3 has appeared on DVD.

In addition, after an initial investigation of online sites worldwide, we have so far found no pirated copies of Spider-Man 3 on the Internet.

We waited an hour in line because of the excrutiatingly slow “camera phone check” – if I was going to film Spider-Man 3 I wouldn’t do it with my phone and in a way that would be so obvious that security would find my electronic device would I?